Versioning/batch renaming sequences efficiently

How can I "version" my sequences efficiently? Basically I want to have a history of the sequences in my project that are cleanly split between client review cycles. So far I have noticed:

- One can't have two timelines with the same name.
- One can't use metadata to rename sequences with variables like clips.
- One can't batch rename sequences at all.

So if I have 20 timelines that I want to iterate, I have been duplicating them, tagging them with version, and moving the "* copy" sequences to a sub-bin. This works so so as the "* copy", "* copy 1", "* copy 2" in the sequence names is yuck. Note that I have to keep the current timeline without any name change so that I can export files named correctly. I was disappointed not finding any batch renaming features that would make this workflow trivial to accomplish.

Is there a better way to do this?

I do it manually, it doesn't feel like a massive hardship, just part of the job... that said, I obviously wouldn't mind if there were a better way ... but really, its such a trivial part of the day. Different strokes for different folks tho.

Not a hardship for a few at a time but 20 x 4 iterations gets old pretty quickly. Pity there's no scripting layer that the community could use to solve annoying workflow issues like this. A regex renaming tool would be great.